there were speeches to make and banquets to be bored at, he was talking informally. A month later "What I can't understand, sir, is why they came in. They only had to wait a couple of hours and the whole kit and caboodle would have been dumped in their laps. Yet they come barging in and give us exactly the opening we want. I don't get it." "That is an interesting question," the Old Man replied with a shadow of a twinkle. "You might almost think they had intercepted an order I sent to our Intelligence Officer, on Q, to sabotage the Converter if the protocol was signed." The Commander jumped. "Was that order given, sir?" "Yes, it was. But it was countermanded an hour later. Different channel, however. I remembered they had broken the code of the first channel." He paused a moment. "That illustrates a good point to remember, Morgan. You intercept enemy messages and break their code. A very useful trick. Also very dangerous, if the enemy discovers you have broken it, and you don't know that he knows. Very dangerous, indeed." The young man laughed. The older one smiled, bleakly. As Morgan looked out the window, he saw the public news-casters spelling out the full mobilization of the Federation. A glow filled his heart as he realized the people were now willing, if they had to, to fight to defend their freedom. THE END Transcriber's Note: Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from If: Worlds of Science Fiction November 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.
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